A Capitol Party
by Estoma
Summary: Amid the crowd, so dosed on their party drugs they barely noticed, a woman burnt.


**Author's note: Yes, this may look familiar. It was formerly found in the collection of oneshots called 'Outside the Box' which is no more. **

At the foot of the tribute tower, and indeed, all through the city, the parties continued through the darkest hours of the night. Spotlights mounted on the tops of towering buildings cast strange shadows down on the revellers. Some of the lights made it appear as if there were patterns of cuts on people's clothes and exposed skin. Others made it look as if they were bleeding. But the Capitol citizens appeared exotic enough even without the ghastly spotlights. Their clothes, hair, even skin, were dyed shades that were not, and should not, be seen in nature. Yellows so garish they hurt the eye, the way looking into the sun does. And everywhere there were flames. Flames patterned onto clothes, skin, cast down by the huge spotlights.

There was not just light and colour, but sound too. The very ground vibrated with the sound of speakers taller than three men on each other's shoulders. They were lined in rows like soldiers. Even standing a block away, you could feel the sound thrumming in your sternum, and it was impossible to talk. Nobody tried.

The speakers also served to block out the sound of screaming. Amid the crowd, so dosed on their party drugs that they barely noticed, a woman burnt. Flames, real ones, licked across her skin and sizzled in her hair. They were not as bright, nor as perfect, as the painted flames on her neighbor's skin, but they burnt with an intensity that could never be captured in paint. They were a thousand red tongues, licking up her shoulder, neck, thighs. Or like cruel fingers, tearing at the skin with red hot nails. Off the woman's shoulders hung the remnants of ruined costume, her pathetic attempt to copy those worn in the tribute parade the night before. She wasn't a girl on fire, she was just a woman burning. People drew aside as she writhed on the ground, some pointing, exclaiming at the clever trick. Not one of them realised that there was no illusion; her skin really was blackening and her hair dissolving to ash.

In complete contrast to the citizens they were charged to protect (and observe), the peacekeepers wore all white. They ringed the crowd, and stood at each corner in pairs. In the changeable light, they looked like ghosts. And though the same patterned spotlights touched them, they did not dance and writhe under them. The patterns passed over the still men.

Davi leaned up against the wall, and he could feel the music thrumming up his spine. He wore ear plugs, so he heard nothing, but the sound was like a sheer force. At times he felt as if he were being pushed further into the wall. It'd been five years since he joined the peacekeepers, and he hadn't been to a party since then. Watching the dancers writhe like snakes in a barrel, Davi's lip curled up into a sneer. He wasn't sure he'd go to another party if he got the chance.

His companion nudged him in the ribs with his elbow. Davi looked the way Mather pointed, and he creased his brow in confusion. Mather pointed again, a lewd grin splitting his wide face. A woman was dancing not far from them, and she was one of the ones who had patterned their skin with flames. It had obviously been a poor job; not tattooed on, only painted, because the flames had run. Now runnels of yellow, orange and red combined with sweat to make an ugly smear on her skin. Most ran down, following the natural curves of her body. The flow disappeared under her skirt, and Davi imagined it painting her pubes a dirty red, and sliding between her cheeks.

Mather nudged him again, waiting for a reaction. It was only when Davi looked even closer that he realised one of the woman's breasts was bare. It swung with her gyrating dance. The left shoulder of her shirt was torn, as if by a sharp fingernail and hung, useless. It looked like tearing more, but she hadn't noticed. Davi nodded to Mather, to say he'd seen it, and the boy grinned again. He really was no more than a boy; it was astounding how he came to be in debt so soon.

Davi leaned back against the wall, but his companion wasn't still. He leaned forwards further, towards the woman who danced on anyway. He mimed closing his hand around something. Davi shook his head but Mather turned away. Davi fixed his gaze on another group; a man with flames, another who wore only a g-string, soaked with sweat, until Mather nudged him again. His companion was grinning, his hand covered in smeared red paint.

It seemed as if some animal instinct took the burning woman. She writhed on the stop, slapping the flames with her hands, tearing at the fabric that melted onto her skin, even though her hands burnt too. Then she ran. Where she was running was unsure, but she left a fiery trail behind her, and an acrid taste in the air. And the fire spread. She crashed into another woman in a dress so long it swept the ground, though most of it had been torn off where someone trod on it. The flames caught the back of the dress, and the woman leant back to see how prettily they burnt. She thought it a clever trick. Until the synthetic material began to shrink, and it melted and clung to her thighs and she felt the heat. She started screaming too, though nobody heard. And the fire spread.

This time it was a man in a cape patterned with flames. They were only fabric, but as the fire caught, for a moment, his cape looked just like the tributes'. And then it started to crumbled and ashes flew free, like dark moths. He spun around, batting senselessly with his hands and fanning the flames. The fire spread again.

Mather was still grinning and Davi still frowning when the first burning woman ran past them. And in the clear space she left, they could see flames. Real flames, hungry beasts with a thousand tongues. As they watched, a woman's headdress lit up like a torch, flames reaching up and up.

"Holy fuck," Davi mouthed, though nobody could hear. Mather was shouting too, but he couldn't read his lips, nor hear a word. His hand reached for his radio. He could see a dozen, maybe more people burning, and the fire was spreading; the synthetic fabrics a perfect fuel. Some went to their knees, some rolled desperately on the ground. One man just kept dancing; the party drugs had dulled his senses, he didn't feel the fire surrounding him like an embrace.

The block was barely recognisable in the cold light of dawn. One of the buildings had caught fire, and the cherry red and sky blue paint had cracked and peeled, hanging off in sheets, or littered the ground. The speakers still stood sentinel and they looked ghostly through the thin vale of smoke. It was all silent now too. The automatic sprinklers had finally cut in when the impromptu stage went up in flames. The sensors had been set to detect smoke; the problem was, synthetic fabric and cooking flesh didn't make much smoke.

Bodies lay where they fell. There were more than twenty of them. Some were curled up, some splayed out, and some contorted and broken by the crowd that trampled them in their haste to escape. Even humans, even Capitol citizens fear real fire when it comes down to it. It took the stage burning, and collapsing, burying the two singers, for most to realise that there was no illusion; there was just danger.

Davi and Mather had escaped, their minds unclouded by the popular drugs. They wandered through the square, not saying anything, even though now they could be heard and understood. Davi kicked aside a forgotten shoe; it was twisted and barely recognisable. He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, not daring to look down. That was why he stumbled and pitched forwards using his hands to break his fall. His palms hit something that gave beneath him. He looked down. Both hands had broken the charred skin of a body, male or female, he couldn't tell, only that their clothes had burnt away. They had a new skin now, blacked and crisp. When he pulled his hands away, bits of it clung.

His stomach clenched and he knelt down in the ashes. Acid burnt his throat as he emptied his stomach again and again onto the blackened ground. Even when there was nothing left, he kept dry retching. Mather was doing the same.

They were still like that when an older peacekeeper saw them. He strode through the bodies, watching his feet. Occasionally he stopped to look at one, to see if they could still be alive, but he didn't find any. Davi stood up when he saw the man, and he touched Mather's shoulder to do the same. The younger man ignored him, holding his stomach again.

"How, how many dead?" Davi asked, forcing his voice, raw from the acid, to function.

"That's the fucking joke," the man said.

"The joke?"

"Yeh, the districts will be happy. And the tributes up there."

"Sir?"

"These fuckers here," he said, sweeping his arm across the square, "there's twenty four of them."


End file.
